Interview with Ralph Moir: Part III,

Questions on Edward Teller

1. Edward Teller remained a controversial figure at the time of his death. Since you worked with Teller, what do you think the public should know, in order to better understand him?

He was brilliant, multi-dimentional and focussed. He promoted action via the political process that gave him fame and infamy but most importantly gave results. His writing and that written about him tells the story. It is most inspiring and I recommend its reading to anyone interested.

2. My own understanding of Teller was that he was a complex person. Can you give us some insights?

Yes he was complex but getting to know him told you he was in depth on many axis. He focussed on one topic at a time. Sequentially he could switch to another topic but preferred to stay on the topic at hand and work it hard. He treated science as having fun. It was a joy to him to discuss ideas.

3. Teller appears to have had a long time interest in the molten salt reactor. How important did Teller think the development of the Molten Salt Reactor was?

Teller had a long term interest in seeing fission reactors built for man kind's benefit. His interest was to encourage that end rather than work directly in pursuit of reactor development. He strongly favored thorium and thermal reactors and undergrounding them. He periodically over the past 25 years of his life would call on me to review the characteristics of various reactor types. I always treated all of them but ended by saying I preferred the molten salt reactor. He finally agreed with me and we wrote the paper together. In other words he was not a strong advocate of the molten salt reactor over a lot of years. He thought the program must have been terminated for good reasons. After examining the reasons for terminating the program he came up with the phrase, "it was an excusable mistake." He believed building a small molten salt reactor to get the development going and get deployment going was most urgent because our energy options are running out (especially natural gas).

4. Did Teller have any time frame in which he anticipated to molten salt reactor development?

At a spending level of $100 M per year for R&D and $100 M per year for construction, such a program could have a ~10 MWe unit operating in a decade and be well on the way towards a large scale power plan.

5. Teller was interested in setting up reactors underground. Why did he prefer underground placement, rather than using conventional containment structures?

He used the word "obvious" safety. Bomb tests conducted underground contained the radioactive products very well. It was this fact and the fact that waste are to be stored underground both suggest building the reactors themselves underground. I repeatedly brought up the point that under grounding increases the cost and if the cost increase is too much, perhaps over 20% the reactor will most likely not be built. He accepted the idea that 10 m underground was a good compromise between the safety benefits of undergrounding while keeping the cost add on small enough to not preclude the deployment.

My web site (www.geocities.com/rmoir2003) gives links to downloading my paper with Teller on the Thorium fueled underground power plant based on molten salt technology. Also there are papers on cost of electricity compared to other reactors and recommendations for a aresatart of molten salt reactor development.

David Fleming on Thorium

Introduction: David Fleming has a very different view of thorium that I have taken in Nuclear Green. Fleming poses as an expert on nuclear energy, but it is clear that he is nothing of the kind. Fleming is in fact a nuclear semi-illiterate. I say semi-illiterate because he describes certain nuclear processes, he has no comprehension of the technology by which these things are managed. This leads him into the conceptual in which he tells us that certain things are difficult to accomplish, but he does not give us a clue why this is the case. I will not review Fleming's entire booklett "The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy." My primary intent is to focuse on his account of thorium.

From: The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy
By David Fleming

Flemming introduces himself this way:
David Fleming has an MA (History) from Oxford, an MBA from Cranfield and an MSc and PhD (Economics) from Birkbeck College, University of London. He has worked in industry, the financial services and environmental consultancy, and is a former Chairman of the Soil Association. He designed the system of Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), (aka Domestic Tradable Quotas and Personal Carbon Allowances), in 1996, and his booklet about them, Energy and the Common Purpose, now in its third edition in this series, was first published 2005. His Lean Logic: The Book of Environmental Manners is forthcoming.

In case we have no doubt where Fleming is coming from he tells us:
"Thank you to Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen for many months of comments and expert advice. References for his work, and the work he has published jointly with the late Dr Philip Smith, are given on pages 41-42. This booklet is substantially guided by their research, but it builds on it and takes the discussion of energy policy options further. The conclusions I draw, including the concept of “energy bankruptcy”, treatment of the backlog of waste, and the alternative vision of Lean Energy, are my own. All summaries sacrifice detail, some of which may be important. I make no claim that this booklet is beyond challenge in its representation of Storm van Leeuwen and Smith’s exhaustive and careful analysis: the responsibility for the entire contents of this booklet is my own."

Now this Is Fleming's account of thorium.

(b) Thorium
The other way of breeding fuel is to use thorium. Thorium is a metal found in most rocks and soils, and there are some rich ores bearing as much as 10 percent thorium oxide. The relevant isotope is the slightly radioactive thorium-232. It has a half-life three times that of the earth, so that makes it useless as a direct source of energy, but it can be used as the starting-point from which to breed an efficient nuclear fuel. Here’s how:

o Start by irradiating the thorium-232, using a start-up fuel – plutonium 239 will do it. Thorium-232 is slightly fertile, and absorbs a neutron to become thorium-233.
o The thorium-233, with a half-life of 22.2 minutes, decays to protactinium-233.
o The protactinium-233, with a half-life of 27 days, decays into uranium 233.
o The uranium-233 is highly fissile, and can be used not just as nuclear fuel, but as the start-up source of irradiation for a blanket of thorium 232, to keep the whole cycle going indefinitely.

This account is more than a little problematic. There is no mention here of the role that reactors play in the radiation of thorium, of what radioactive particle is involved. Fleming appears to know less than the famous radioactive boy scout. He fails to notice that less conventional neuutron radiation sources have been proposed for use in breeding thorium.

But, as is so often the case with nuclear power, it is not as good as it looks. The two-step sequence of plutonium-breeding is, as we have seen, hard enough. The four-step sequence of thorium-breeding is worse. The uranium-233 which you get at the end of the process is contaminated with uranium-232 and with highly-radioactive thorium-228, both of which are neutron-emitters, reducing its effectiveness as a fuel; it also has the disadvantage that it can be used in nuclear weapons. The comparatively long half-life of protactinium-233 (27 days) makes for problems in the reactor, since substantial quantities linger on for up to a year. Some reactors – including Kakrapar-1 and -2 in India – have both achieved full power using some thorium in their operation, and it may well be that, if there is to be a very long-term future for nuclear fission, it will be thorium that drives it along. And yet, the full thorium breeding cycle, working on a scale which is large-enough and reliable-enough to be commercial, is a long way away.

Fleming tells us that it is hard to breed thorium, but he really does not offer us a clue why a four step breeding processes should be so difficult. He appears to be clueless about how reactors work so he keeps telling us how hard this is and leaves it at that.

And even if that day does come, its contribution, for the foreseeable future, will be tiny, This is because it has to begin with some start up fuel, A source of neutrons to get the hole [sic] thing going. It could come from uranium-235, which is going to be scarce, but there could perhaps be a case for using some in a breeder, even if the process for the first generation of reactors used more energy than it generated. Or, it could come from plutonium, but (a) there isn’t very much of that around either; (b) what there is (especially if we are going to do what Lovelock urges) is going to be busy as the fuel for once- through reactors and/or fast-breeder reactors, as explained above; and (c) it is advisable, wherever there is an alternative, to keep plutonium-239 and uranium-233 – an unpredictable mixture – as separate as possible. The third, and ideal, option is uranium-233, the final fuel produced by the thorium cycle, but the problem here is that it doesn’t exist until the cycle is complete, so it can’t be used to start it.

Fleming does tell us elsewhere why he thinks U235 is going to be scarce. His argument is highly speculative, but I am not going to address that now. It is not clear why enough Pu239 would not be around. First there are two potential sources of Pu239. One is spent nuclear fuel which contains not only Pu239, but also Pu240, Pu241, and AM 242. These are nuclear waste products, which Fleming claims are going to take so much energy to clean up. What Fleming does not understand is that the energy to clean up nuclear waste could come from the very wasteprducts that need to be cleaned up, and that while burning the waste products in a reactor, you can also be generating the neutrons required to breed thorium. Clearly Fleming should have spent not quite as many months talking to Storm van Leeuwen, and spent some time consulting with a real nuclear scientist.

"But let’s suppose that enough uranium-235 or plutonium-239 were made available to provide a full load for one reactor and to keep it going for its lifetime. There is no good foundation for forecasting the rate of growth but, taking account of all the assumptions about technical solutions that are intrinsic to this subject, there is the possibility that by 2075 there could be two thorium-cycle breeder reactors delivering energy to the grid. have to buy-in much of the needed net energy from other sources, at which point, of course, the industry will change from being a net supplier of energy to being a net consumer. And yet, in an energy-strapped society, the non-nuclear energy needed to dispose of the nuclear industry’s legacy will be hard to find. The prospect is opening up of massive stocks of unstable wastes which – since the energy is lacking – are impossible to clear up."

This is the sort of thinking after hanging out of spending many month with Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and getting his comments and expert advice. We are going to suppose that (1) the only source of neutrons is going to be U235, or Pu239, (2) that so little Pu239, or U235 would be around that only one thorium breeding reactor could be built, and that (3) no one is going to be smart enough to think of using the U235 and reactor grade plutonium found in nuclear waste in order to breed thorium. Well if David Fleming and Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen aren't smart enough to think of that, no one else is going to be. Of course Liquid Fluoride Thorium reactors can burn peoples reactor waste to a cinder, while breeding Th232 to produce U233. And the nice thing about the thorium cycles is that it produces very valuable minerals, rather than "reactor waste." This is another thing that Fleming and Storm van Leeuwen dids not understand.

In a post on the Oil Drum on January 4 of this year, Fleming have us his digested take on Thorium:

"And thorium? It is an inelegant technology, lumbering through a decay sequence from thorium 232 to thorium-233 to protactinium-233 – and eventually to uranium 233 – along with a swarm of contaminants including the neutron-emitters uranium-232 and thorium-228. Added complications include the long half-life of the protactinium-233 (27 days), so that it lingers around, causing problems in the reactor, and the awkward fact that uranium-233 can be used in nuclear weapons. Then there is the question of what start-up fuel to use: the best one would be uranium-233, but you only get a supply of that at the end of the first cycle. If plutonium-239 is available, it would seem to be more sensible to use it for the fast-breeder programme than to start the even more uncertain thorium cycle. And the problem of scale is even more decisive in the case of the thorium cycle than in the case of fast-breeders. On the best estimate available at present, and pretending for a moment that the technical difficulties are eventually solved, we could look forward in 2075 to a global fleet of perhaps two thorium-based reactors."

Such scientific language, "ineligent," "lumbering," "a swarm of contaminants." We are told quite inaccurately that U232 and Th228 are "neutron-emitters" and that U232 is a contaminant, actually its presence is viewed as desirable because it contributes to the thorium breeding cycle proliferation resistance. "[T]he best estimate available at present," oh please, whose estimate are we talking about here? Is that the best estimate of doctor objectivity himself? Is that the best estimate of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen?

Advice to the New Thorium Industry

Blogging can be an adventure.  A week and a half ago, I wrote about the abundance of uranium and thorium.  The evidence pointed to uranium being so abundant as to be all practical purposes, a renewable resource. In contrast the USGS reported thorium reserves seemed rare.  Yet it was universally acknowledged that thorium was at least three times as plentiful as uranium.  This made no sense.  Then I found a report by Conrad Windham on thorium  resources.  Conrad Windham is a speculator, not a geologist, but Windham reported a tremendous geological find at Lemhi Pass in Idaho.  According to Windham, there was enough thorium in the ground there to power the United States for several centuries, and quite possibly enough to power the United States for over 2000 years.  Subsequently I found similar statements from Jack Loften. Loften had attended a meeting of geologists at which a paper on the Lemhi Pass find was read and discussed. Finally I located a confirmation of the Lemhi Pass find on the the Web pages of Thorium Energy, the owner of the Lemhi Pass stake.  So It is beyond reasonable doubt Thorium Energy is the owner of a very large thorium find.  

The implication of the Lemhi Pass are staggering.  There are many advantages to the use of thorium rather than uranium in the nuclear fuel cycle.  The thorium fuel cycle largely solves the problem of nuclear waste, it is proliferation resistant, and  inherently safe thorium fueled reactors have been designed and tested.

The problem for Thorium Energy is not going to be getting the thorium out of the ground, indeed they are claiming a potential of "25 to 63 percent thorium oxide (ThO 2) per ton of raw ore. Thus one ton of thorium ore could potentially yield as much as 500-1,200 lbs. of high grade thorium oxide (ThO2)." The problem then will be finding the reactors into which the thorium will go.

There are several obstacles to the massive potential sale of thorium that are possible given the extent of the Lemhi Pass resources. The Light Water Reactor (LWR), the type of reactor used by the nuclear industry is extremely expensive. There are are numerous inefficiencies associated with the LWR concept.  The LWR uses its fuel very inefficiently, and indeed most of the potential energy in its fuel is not extracted by the LWR.  The inefficiency of the LWR fuel cycle in turn creates the problem of nuclear waste.  

A second inefficiency has to do with reprocessing nuclear fuel.  The solid reactor fuel in light water reactors must be broken down into a liquid soluble form, and chemically processed.  This chemical processing of highly radioactive fuels is highly expensive.  A more efficient reactor design would use fuel in a form that would me more easily to process chemically.  

Finally, the LWR is inefficient in its use of the heat it produces. The LWR is limited by the use of water as a heat transfer medium. Water is not a very efficient means of transferring the heat nuclear fuel is capable of producing. Yet the higher output heat leads to greater the output heat from a reactor, the greater its thermal efficiency. Thus a more efficient reactor would use a heat transport fluid that is more efficient than water.

Paradoxically the inefficiencies of LWR contribute to the expense of building them, and create many of their problems. The inefficiencies of the light water reactor are the greatest obstacle to the the sale of thorium.

The 19th century economist, William Stanley Jevons provides us with a central clue: "It is the very economy of its [coal's] use which leads to its extensive consumption."

Jevons added: "It needs but little reflection to see that the whole of our present vast industrial system, and its consequent consumption of coal, has chiefly arisen from successive measures of economy."

"Civilization, says Baron Liebig, is the economy of power, and our power is coal. It is the very economy of the use of coal that makes our industry what it is; and the more we render it efficient and economical, the more will our industry thrive, and our works of civilization grow."

The lesson to the thorium produces is clear, if you want to sell more thorium, greater reactor economies are required. Those efficiencies are to be found in the management of heat, and in the processing of fuel, as well as in other aspects of reactor design that can lower reactor cost.
Reactor scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, during the 1950's, looked at the problem of reactor design. They had invented the light water reactor, but were acutely aware of its limitations. They believed that reactors could be more efficient if the nuclear fuel were suspended in a fluid, rather than inserted into the reactor in a solid form. By suspending the fuel in a fluid, it became more easily accessible for chemical processing. After some research, they determined that the best fluid for this purpose was hot liquid fluoride salts. A test reactor was built, and it performed well. The liquid fluoride approach was seen to work well with a thorium fuel process, because there was the potential to continuously process the fuel and blanket salts. Much of the chemical processing would be relatively inexpensive, because much of the chemistry for the process was fairly simple and well understood within the nuclear industry.

As Oak Ridge scientists studied the potential of a reactor used nuclear fuel suspended in liquid fluoride salts, they found more and more to like about it. It was far far safer than LWR. It could produce from thorium, an atom of fissionable U233, for every atom of U233 it burned. Some fission products could be easily removed from the reactor, while others radioactive isotopes could remain in the reactor salts fluid, until the reactor was removed from service. At that point they could be processed out of the salt fluid, and after loosing their radioactivity, the many valuable materials that had been produced by the nuclear process, could be recycled into industry. Thus the supposed problem of nuclear waste could be solved.

Political opposition by government bureaucrats and powerful members of Congress eventually killed research into a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Many scientist, however, continued to believe that the LFTR has many unique advantages.  In his last paper (Thorium fueled underground power plant based on molten salt technology, ), Edward Teller wrote, 

"Our economic goal is to achieve a cost of electrical energy averaged over the life of the power station to be no more than that from burning fossil fuels at the same location. Past studies have shown a potential for the molten salt reactor to be somewhat lower in cost of electricity than both coal and LWRs. There are several reasons for substantial cost savings: low pressure operation, low operations and maintnance costs, lack of fuel fabrication, easy fuel handling, low fissile inventory, use of multiple plants at one site allowing sharing of facilities, and building large plant sizes. The cost of undergrounding the nuclear part of the plant obviously needs to be determined and will likely not offset the cost advantages of a liquid-fueled low-pressure reactor." 

In a separate research proposal (Deep-Burn Molten-Salt Reactors ), Ralph Moir of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who co-authored Teller's last paper, togeather with T. J. Dolan, of Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Sean M. McDeavitt of Argonne National Laboratory, D. F. Williams and C. W. Forsberg of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and E. Greenspan and J. Ahn of the University of California, Berkeley wrote,

"Molten salt reactors have the potential of meeting the goals of Generation IV reactors
better than solid fuel reactors. They also have the potential of meeting the goals of the
high-level waste transmutation program better than solid fuel reactors. In fact, they may
enable doing most if not all of the transmutation planned for accelerator-driven
subcritical reactors."

They stated:

We know qualitatively that there are many benefits of MSRs relative to other fission power plants:
reliable low pressure operation
no solid fuel fabrication
online refueling
negative temperature coefficient
negative void coefficient
low radioactive source term
potential for large unit size
thorium resource utilization
high fuel burnup
high temperature and thermal efficiency
LWR actinide burnup
proliferation resistance
low HLW mass and repository requirements
low capital cost.

Clearly then the LFTR-Molten salt reactor has significant economical advantages that bring the reactor economies that will in turn promote thorium sales.

C;J. Barton, Sr. at Harwell

This photograph was made during a June 27, 28. 1963 visit by my father to the Atomic Research Establishment at Harwell.  Seated is Alan E. J. Eggleton of the Health Physics and Medical Division of Harwell.  Eggleton investigated radiation released by the Windscale fire.  No doubt he and my father had a long conversation about the radiation release following reactor accidents.  

Thorium Energy, Inc. on Lemhi Pass

Introduction: Thorium Energy, Inc. has acknowledged that its confirmed reserve at Lemhi Pass amounts to 600,000 tons with a probable reserve of 1.8 million tons. To understand the implications of the Lemhi Pass discovery the USGS currently lists the following thorium reserves:
Thorium reserve (USGS 2006)
Confirmed Probable
United States 160,000 300,000

World Total 1,200,000 1,400,000

The reserve figures giiven the Lemhi Pass find are
Confirmed Probable
United States 760,000 2,100,000

World Total 1,800,000 3,200,000

This may not be the complete extent of the Lemhi Pass Thorium reserve, because although Thorium Energy holds the largest claims in Lemhi pass, it is not the only claim holder. Other holder have not been heard from yet.

Statement from Thorium Energy:

One of the world’s largest known reserves of high quality thorium (thorium oxide) reserves is located in the United States, in an area known as the Lemhi Pass, which is situated along the Idaho/Montana Border. Various studies were performed to determine the economic impact of thorium utilization in the nuclear industry and the estimated amount of thorium oxide reserves contained in the Lemhi Pass region. The reports confirm that the Lemhi Pass region contains sufficient deposits of high-grade thorium reserves to provide the fuel requirements of the nuclear industry in the United States for several centuries. Thorium Energy, Inc.™ owns the proprietary mineral rights to the largest claim in this region, representing what is believed to be one of the single largest privately owned Thorium reserves in the world.

The Company’s reserves consist of 68 separate resource claims, each consisting of approximately 20 Acres, located in the Lemhi Pass Region, which is situated along the border between Idaho and Montana. Included in the Company’s claims are significant mining veins, which contain 600,000 tons of proven thorium oxide reserves. Various estimates indicate additional probable reserves of as much as 1.8 million tons or more of thorium oxide contained within these claims. The Company’s claims also include significant deposits of rare earth metals.

It is also the richest Thorium vein in the U.S. Thus over the years since 1950, the property has been explored and investigated by a succession of different companies. The first major owner was Sawyer Petroleum, then Union Pacific, Tenneco, and finally Idaho Power Company (IPCO)."

Metallurgy tests conducted in the region estimate that the average mine run grade is approximately 5% or more of thorium oxide (ThO 2). In fact, vein deposits of thorite (ThSiO 4), such as those that occur in the area of the Lemhi Pass, present the highest grade thorium, mineral, and are believed to contain approximately 25 to 63 percent thorium oxide (ThO 2) per ton of raw ore. Thus one ton of thorium ore could potentially yield as much as 500-1,200 lbs. of high grade thorium oxide (ThO 2), as compared with less than one percent of raw Uranium ore that is typically utilizable. The deployment of Lemhi Pass Thorium represents a more economically feasible source of nuclear grade ore than Uranium deposits.

The owl of Minerva takes its flight

I noticed that the price of gas has gone up something like 20 cents since the last time I bought it. And the price of crude oil was up to $110 a barrel the last time I checked. Meanwhile former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist seems to think that Republican leaders are far more concerned about Mexicans swimming the Reo Grand, than they are where our power is going to come from a few years from now. The media is far more interested in former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer play for pay, girl toy Ashley Alexandra Dupre than it is in the fact that the price of coal has reached an astonishing $300 a ton on the international spot market.

People are going to start feeling the pain whenever they pay for natural gas or electricity or make the dread trip to a service station to fill up with gasoline. I recently visited a doctor's office. While I sat in the waiting room, I looked through a car magazine. What struck me most was how much the cars I was looking at were all out of the past. Why would I want a car with a 385 horsepower engine? I could not afford the gas! A form of life is passing, yet no one yet notices. When they do the crisis will begin. We are not there yet. Most of us are still asleep, and many of those who are waking up are still in a dream state. We are in an era of slumber. of waking dreams and of confusion.

What can we say of the idea that the sun and the wind can save us, that these are the future sources of energy? Are these not waking dreams. Where is the evidence that this has been thought through? Where is the evidence that people understand the realities and the cost. When the sun sets and the wind stops blowing, where will the electricity come from? Will we sit shivering in the dark? Surely at that point we will at last awake.

When people start to ask, What has happened to us, it will already be to late. For the world they will be asking about is already going away. The philosopher Hegel once observed:

"Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering."

Solutions do not come from those forms of life which cannot be rejuvenated. Nor do they come from dreams. Solutions ome by facing our current realities, and putting away our dreams.

Wind power in West Denmark

Wind power in West Denmark. Lessons for the UK. ©
By Dr V.C. Mason (October 2005)

Summary: Although one fifth of the electrical power produced annually in West Denmark is generated by its enormous capacity of wind turbines, only about 4% of the region’s total power consumption is provided from this source. Most of the output of wind power is surplus to demand at the moment of generation and has to be exported at reduced prices to preserve the integrity of the domestic grid. Savings in carbon emissions are minimal. To diminish exports and lower carbon emissions, plans are now in hand to use surplus wind power for resistance heating at local combined-heat-and-power plants.

Background
Denmark (pop. 5.4 million) operates some of the world’s most efficient coal, gas and bio-fuelled CHP plants for central and local electricity production and district heating. It has also become a leading pioneer of renewable energy in an attempt to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and imported power. In this context its Wind Turbine Industry has become an important aspect of the national economy, employing about 20,000 Danes and currently supplying about 40% of the world market (Nielsen, 2004). The country has also made considerable progress in the development of solar power and bio-fuel technologies.

Denmark’s renewable energy programme is based principally on wind power. Since 1985, about 3,317 MW of mega wind turbine capacity have been installed (Bülow, 2004a), of which 420 MW are sited offshore (Nielsen, 2004). More is planned for the future (Bendtsen and Hedegaard, 2004). Until recently, these developments were heavily subsidised, directly and indirectly. They were under-pinned by a statutory obligation on Transmission System Operators (and indirectly on electricity consumers) to buy the total output of power from wind and local district heating sources at elevated prices fixed by Government. In addition, direct subsidies were paid for renewable energy produced under obligatory purchase and free market conditions. Between the end of 2000 and 2003, the associated costs were officially said to be DKK 3.40-3.85 billion per annum (Bendtsen, 2003), although some have claimed that in 2001 consumers were paying an extra DKK 8-10 billion every year in capital and operational costs for the combined conventional + renewable energy package (Krogsgaard, 2001). A serious consequence is that Danish householders pay almost double the UK price for electricity.

Since 1985, the size and number of Denmark’s industrial wind turbines has grown steadily in attempts to improve their efficiency, economy and output. According to one prediction, 20MW wind turbines as high as the Eiffel Tower may be a reality by 2015 (Andersen, 2001). Towards this end, a subsidised ‘re-powering’ scheme recently encouraged the replacement of 1,200 small turbines (< 150 kW) by 300 bigger ones (Nielsen, 2004), and under a similar arrangement a further 900 turbines of under 450 kW capacity will soon be displaced by 175 larger machines (Sandøe, 2004a). Such upgrading seems likely to continue. Most of the turbines scrapped to date operated for less than 16 years (Bülow, 2002), so it is very difficult to assess their effective lifespan or economy. Furthermore, there has been little, if any, closure of conventional power plant in response to the advent of wind power.

Western Denmark
Denmark operates two unconnected and largely autonomous grid systems, located west and east of the Great Belt, respectively. Each benefits from having large, long-established inter-connectors which facilitate the exchange of power with the bigger systems of Norway, Sweden and/or Germany. The balance of the international flow of electricity is usually in a southerly direction, although in 2003 drought conditions in Norway and Sweden encouraged a net movement northwards (Bülow, 2005a).

Wind conditions in West Denmark are comparable to those found in most of the UK (see Troen & Petersen, 1989), but are somewhat better than in the east of Denmark. Consequently, three-quarters of the country’s capacity of wind turbines is found in the western region, their concentration (c. 820 MW per million of population) being amongst the highest in the world. Indeed, there are few areas in the region’s rather flat or gently rolling countryside where turbines are not visible, and in particularly windy locations concentrations are high. For many residents this has seriously detracted from the former charm and beauty of their traditional, largely agricultural surroundings and coastlines, and it has also had a detrimental impact on associated wildlife habitats. A leading national newspaper has commented: “[It is true that Denmark has placed itself in a leading position with regard to the utilisation of wind energy, but until now this has certainly occurred at great cost to nature and with considerable public subsidy]” (Jyllands Posten, 2004).

Patterns of wind power generation
In Western Denmark (principally Jutland and Funen; pop. c. 2.9 million) electrical power is provided by about 11 primary units (3,516 MW i.c.), 558 district heating plants (1,593 MW i.c. (inc. 40 MW bio-boilers)) and 4,161 wind turbines (2,379 MW i.c.) (Eltra, 2005). Despite the high proportion of wind turbine capacity, however, the bulk of domestic electricity is still provided by central and local CHP plants on the basis of fossil fuels derived from the North Sea. This reflects unpredictable wind conditions, and an inability to assimilate widely fluctuating quantities of wind power into the domestic grid in significant amounts:

a) Despite relatively favourable wind conditions in the region, only 20-24% of the potential annual output of West Danish wind turbines has actually been achieved over the last five years. This compares with the 24.1% load or capacity factor recorded in 2003 for the much smaller number of UK onshore turbines (DTI, 2004), but is higher than the 15% calculated for Germany over the same period (see Reuters, 2004). The Union for Co-operation on Transmission of Electricity (UCTE) claims an average load factor (LF) of only 20% for its European TSO members (Refocus Weekly, 2004). Clearly, the economy of a wind turbine is greatly affected by its LF, which in turn is influenced by local wind speeds, turbulence, midge or salt accumulations on blades, and breakdowns. Serious technical problems have been recorded for the transformers of offshore wind turbines at Horns Rev (Andersen, 2004a; Renewable Energy Access, 2004) and Middelgrunden (Møller, 2005).

b) The output of wind power is highly variable and unpredictable. In strong winds, up to 2,379 MW of wind power can be generated for a domestic system in which the demand throughout the year can range between about 1,300 and 3,800 MW. In contrast, adverse conditions can greatly restrict production (Bülow, 2004a). Throughout February 2003, for example, wind speeds and the generation of wind power were very low (Bülow, 2003), while in January 2005 a hurricane forced wind turbines to shut down within hours of running at near maximum output (Andersen, 2005a). Levels of output are very sensitive to conditions. At the Horns Rev off-shore wind station, for example, an increase in wind speed from about 9 to 11.5 metres per second can double production from about 80 to 160 MW within a few minutes (Eltra, 2005).

c) Although renewable energy generation has now reached the numerically equivalent of about 26.5% of annual demand (Bülow, 2005a) and wind turbines account for about 20% of total power production (Eltra, 2005), most of the region’s wind power has to be exported in order to secure stability in the domestic grid. During 2003, for example, as much as 84% of the annual supply of wind electricity was surplus to demand at its moment of generation (Sharman, 2004), and only about 4% of domestic power consumption was satisfied by wind turbines (Sharman, 2005a). In fact, close relationships exist between wind power generation and the region’s net exports of electricity (see Nissen, 2004; and Sharman, 2004). Prior to 1st January 2005, surpluses were also promoted by subsidies offered for electricity produced by the independently operating Denmark’s countryside and coastal areas will continue to be eroded as the size and, perhaps, number of wind turbines and associated plant increases.

Carbon emissions
The quantitative significance of man-made carbon emissions in the process of climate change is a matter of scientific dispute and public conjecture. In 2000, Danish man-made emissions of carbon dioxide were estimated to correspond to only 0.0003% of all the carbon dioxide released annually into the atmosphere from the Earth (Jyllands Posten, 2001). Nevertheless, it makes sense for Denmark (a small, relatively lightly populated country with limited reserves of fossil fuels) to seek to improve its efficiency of power production.

Compared to the situation in many other countries, West Denmark’s deployment of efficient central and local coal, gas, and bio-fuelled CHP plants represents a major advance, with considerable carbon-saving potential. In contrast, its attempts to assimilate large amounts of wind power into the domestic system have proved to be very disappointing, and have so far produced little or no reduction in carbon emissions because of the need for imported power or the less efficient production of domestic backup to protect the integrity of its grid (Sandøe, 2003a). Most of its large exports of wind power simply displace ‘green’ hydro or nuclear electricity produced in Norway and Sweden, helping to replenish reservoirs only in dry periods or when power is cheap. This has led a former Chairman of Eltra to ask: [“Is it environmentally friendly to produce electricity with wind turbines if there is no-one who can use it? And is it environmentally friendly to burn natural gas in decentralised heat and power plants while dumping the over-production of Danish wind electricity in Norway, where it possibly leads to water being diverted away from the water turbines?”] (Kongstad, 2001). Processes involved in the manufacture, excavation and/or installation of access roads, massive concrete foundations, turbine components, pylons and associated equipment also militate against the emission-saving benefits claimed for mega wind power.

As a matter of fact, despite West Denmark’s massive carpet of wind turbines, its carbon emissions have recently been rising (Bruun, 2005), and a leading Elsam expert has intimated that “[Increased development of wind turbines does not reduce Danish CO2 emissions]” (Nissen, 2004). The region can hope, however, that the future linking of CHP and wind power in a more flexible and co-ordinated system will improve the predictability and sustainability of power production, moderate surges and exports, and even reduce carbon emissions.

Lessons for the UK
The UK aspires to 20% renewable energy by 2020 (i.e. the level already achieved in West Denmark). This equates to about 60 - 70 TWh of renewable energy (see Sharman, 2005b). To obtain 70 TWh of production on the basis of wind turbines alone would require an installed capacity of between 23 and 40 GW, depending on the LF achieved (i.e. 35-20%). Danish experience suggests that the 40 GW estimate (equivalent to about 20,000 2MW wind turbines) would lie closest to reality, and that the UK would also need to invest heavily in local CHP plants and/or large inter-connectors for backup. Most of the associated requirement for natural gas would need to be met from vulnerable foreign sources.

The deployment of such numbers of mega turbines would have a big impact on UK land use. A widely used rule of thumb stipulates that to prevent the turbulence from adjacent turbines taking power from each other (thereby reducing the overall LF), they should be separated by 7 to 10 times their rotor diameter. Even this spacing is too close, ‘shadow’ effects being monitored 5 km away from wind stations (Andersen, 2005c). It thus appears that the installation of 40 GW of wind power in the UK could leave a dedicated turbine ‘footprint’ (i.e. a close-habitat impact zone), on land and/or at sea, equivalent in size to almost half the total land area of Wales (depending on the size, number and layout of turbines). The situation would become much worse if/when wind power is exploited to produce hydrogen as fuel. Assuming a very optimistic LF of 50% for 3MW wind turbines, a recent study (Oswald and Oswald, 2004) estimated that about 96,000 units would be required to run all British transport vehicles on hydrogen. These would occupy a dedicated area greater than that of Wales or, alternatively, a 10 km strip encircling the entire coastline of the British Isles.

The instalment of turbines and pylons in the more scenic parts of the UK would inevitably involve the clear-felling of woodland (to maximise LF) and the incidental drainage of wetland during the excavation and building of access roads and foundations. This would stimulate the oxidation of peat (releasing carbon dioxide), and impact badly on many habitats essential for the survival of particular species of wildlife. The potential danger to protected birds and bats presented by general habitat destruction and the flailing blades of wind turbines has already been illustrated in many American and European situations (e.g. see the Cefn Croes Wind Farm website, 2004, and Mason, 2004).

Conclusions
The West Danish model clearly shows that the installation of large numbers of wind turbines can lead to severe and expensive problems with power transmission, and seriously degrade wildlife habitats and the aesthetic value of land- and seascapes for little or no reduction in carbon emissions. It is therefore imperative that energy conservation schemes and alternative sources of renewable energy are more thoroughly explored before large swathes of unique UK countryside and coastal scenery are lost to industrial wind stations. Conservation measures alone could reduce UK carbon emissions by 30% (Coppinger, 2003).

References
Andersen, P., 2001: “Om 15 år har vi møller på mere end 20 MW”. [In 15 years we will have turbines of more than 20 MW]. Eltra magasinet, 10, November.

Andersen, P., 2003a: “Der-ud-af uden speeder, rat, kobling og bremser”. [Out there without accelerator, steering wheel, clutch or brakes]. Eltra magasinet, 1, January.

Andersen, P., 2003b: “Regulering af lokal production gør os til bedre nabo”. [Regulation of local production will make us better neighbours]. Eltra magasinet , 1, January.

Andersen, P., 2004a: “Forskere endevender søsyge transformere”. [Researchers scrutinise seasick transformers]. Eltra magasinet, 2, February.

Andersen, P., 2004b: “Staten overtager Eltra og Elkraft fra årsskiftet”. [The State takes over Eltra and Elkraft from New Year]. Eltra magasinet, 4, April.

Andersen, P., 2004c: “Eltra støtter og får viden fra norsk vind/brint-projekt”. [Eltra supports and gets information from Norwegian wind/hydrogen project]. Eltra magasinet, 8, October.

Andersen, P., 2005a: “Da stormen tog til stod møllerne af”. [When the storm increased the turbines switched off]. Eltra magasinet, 1, February.

Andersen, P., 2005b: “Tysk netstudie: Muligt at nå 20 procent vind om 10 – 15 år”. [German grid study: Possible to achieve 20 percent wind in 10 – 15 years]. Eltra magasinet, 2, March.

Andersen, P., 2005c: “Mølleparker: Skyggevirkning mærkes fem kilometer borte”. [Turbine parks: Shadow effect is felt five kilometres away]. Eltra magasinet, 4. June-July.

Bendtsen, B., 2003: Parliamentary answer to Question S 4640, 2nd September 2003. http://www.ft.dk/Samling/20021/spor_sv/S4640.htm.

Bendtsen, B. & Hedegaard, C., 2004: “Vindmøller i vælten”. [Wind turbines in fashion]. Jyllands